She headed for the coffee maker.When she turned, Ken stood there, his shirt up, looking down at his abs.
She laughed.“What are you doing?”
“I mean, I don’t see anything different.”He looked up at her.
“I’m sure it’s just me being distracted.”When he walked over, she pulled him in for another, longer kiss.“You’re right that getting home will be good.For me, too.I want to be home.”
His hands rested on her upper arms, lightly rubbing.“When we get home can we have a talk?”
“Uh oh,” she said.“What kind of talk?”
He smirked.“Not a bad talk.I feel like that actress in the beginning ofJawswho got yanked all over the place by the stunt team, and I’m trying not to drown.I want us to sit down and loosely plan the future.I know the lab raid is ahead of us, but we’re going to be parents again.Now that we’ve just survived your first pregnancy, we know what to expect.”
“Hopefully not me nearly committing suicide by clumsiness.”
“Well, there’s that, too.I just want to spend some time talking about it.Does that make sense?”
She lay her head against his chest.“I guess so.”
“We can work on the future for the pack, for you hiring more Enforcers, for setting up a vision for the next few years.Gillian probably wants Peyton to do that, too.”
“You talked to her, didn’t you?”
“Uh,duh.”Ken smiled down at her.“Everyone born with the last name Bleacke needs to figure out how to strike a better work-family balance going forward.”
She sighed.“Deal.If the two rat finks have to do it, I guess I can manage.”
He kissed her forehead.“Love you, baby.”
“Love you, too.Just no more disappearances, huh?”she teased.
He laughed.“Goddess, I hope not.”
ChapterTen
Ken
Home gooood.
Soooo good.
He carried the first load of luggage upstairs to their bedroom, not even caring what happened to any of it right now.He dropped it in the corner of their bedroom, out of the way, and headed back down to grab more stuff from the vehicles.He’d spend tomorrow unpacking—after sleeping in, if possible.Fortunately, there was little laundry to do, because he’d kept up with it while in Idaho.
The flight had been blessedly uneventful, other than Asia’s kids eagerly chattering at each other and staring out the windows while planning various activities they wanted to do and which theme parks they wanted to visit.
Beck and Martin met them at the small airfield with a couple of large vans to drive them all to Dewi’s house.Now that Ken was home, he didn’t want to leave it for a month or longer, if possible.
On his way back down the front hall to go outside and grab more things, he met Dewi coming in with the baby in her carrier in one hand and the diaper bag in the other.
“If you’ll take her,” she said, handing Lyssa off to Ken, “I’ll go back out for another load.”
“Okay.”
For tonight Asia and Gillian would share one of the guest rooms, and the kids would spread out between the living room and family room.Both couches opened into sleeper beds, plus they had air mattresses.Tamsin would take the pool house tonight, and when she went home in the morning they’d reconfigure the sleeping arrangements for the next couple of days until Badger purchased two RV trailers and moved them onto the property for the kids to stay in.Once everyone returned home, they’d still keep the trailers for visitors or to use as temporary office space.
Okay, getting the new houses built on the expanded property will be a priority.
Having too many family members staying over was a problem Ken had absolutely zero experience with, but he was glad to see the Bleacke kids were apparently unfazed by sleeping in the living room and just happy to be in Florida.
